


Fork in the Road

by thegoddessinzerogravity



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: How the Ghost Crew Met Sabine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-29 20:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12639033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoddessinzerogravity/pseuds/thegoddessinzerogravity
Summary: Sabine Wren sits down next to a stranger on a train. This leads to a series of questionable decisions.





	Fork in the Road

The wall of the train hummed and vibrated as it started to move, rattling her body around far too much for sleep, even if she'd wanted to.

Sabine pressed her head even closer to the wall, ensuring she wouldn't accidentally fall asleep. She could relax when the train was officially away from this part of the planet and she was far away from the Imperial officer who'd recognized her old wanted poster from the Academy days. 

She'd actually liked that town, too. It had just enough people so she wouldn't stand out, but small enough so she could easily be on the watch for anyone getting a bit too interested in her. Until some very nosy Imp had spotted her without a helmet on (which was a foolish decision, really, but she had allowed the relatively peaceful town to lull her into a sense of security), and wondered where, exactly, he'd seen her face before.

He'd managed to track her down to the motel she was staying in, but had apparently thought that he was enough to handle her on his own. A very prideful (and stupid) move on his part, but lucky one for Sabine. She'd escaped with nothing worse than a bruise on her face, courtesy of his elbow, and fled to the nearest station to get out of this town to somewhere that could take her off the planet altogether. 

The vibration of the train increased even more, until it finally burst out of the station and was charging away. She released some of the tension she'd been holding onto, but didn't lean away from the wall she was edged up against. It wouldn't do to have any other passengers questioning where her black eye had come from. 

Her armor was off and neatly tucked away in her bag, which was braced in between her feet below her. It made her a bit anxious not wearing it, but she was trying to keep as low a profile as possible on the train, and a brightly colored set of Mandalorian armor would call too much attention to her in the small environment. 

Sabine's eyes slowed started to close, the exhaustion and fear from the past few hours finally starting to set in. She adjusted her position on the seat, wanting to be more comfortable for the long ride. She wouldn't fall asleep, just give her mind and body a chance to rest after the events of the day.

The sudden image of Ketsu floated to the front of her mind, unbidden. If the other girl had been there, she could've slept on the train without worrying about being discovered in her sleep. They had always taken turns sleeping during travel, Ketsu usually insisting on taking the first watch because Sabine was a few years younger than her.

She scowled and shook her head. There was no point longing for the company of her old best friend anymore. Ketsu had made her feelings about Sabine very clear when she left. Thinking about her wouldn't change that.

There was an abrupt squealing over the intercom from the pilot's cart, and a cool, robotic voice announced "There has been an unexpected delay. The train will be stopped indefinitely. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Sabine hissed in frustration as a groan went up among her fellow travelers. She'd _just_ gotten out of that stupid town.

People were already gathering around the wearied-looking train official, demanding to know why they had stopped. Sabine carefully lifted her bag onto her shoulder and stepped closer. She didn't want to actually talk to the official, but she could listen to whatever answers they gave. 

"I'm sorry, madam, there's nothing I nor the pilot can do. It's a matter of business from those higher-up than us. If they say to stop the train, we have to stop the train."

Sabine rolled her eyes and started making her way back to her seat. The official was clearly useless. 

In the short time she'd been gone, someone had sat down on the seat next to hers, and seemed to be occupied reading a datapad. She hesitated for a moment, but then sat down and made a point of not looking to closely at him. Most people didn't care about you if you made it clear you didn't care about them. 

She inched her bag onto her lap, and mentally resigned herself to waiting until whatever "business" was taken care of.

"Impressive shiner, kid."

The comment had come from the man next to her. He had put down his datapad and had turned to the side to look at her. When she didn't respond, he went on "Must be a pretty good story about how you got it. Most bruises do."

He had long hair (longer than what most human men had) pulled into a ponytail, blue eyes, and strangely enough, didn't seem to be carrying any sort of bag with him.

He was clearly still expecting an answer. "I was play-fighting with my friend and he accidentally got me in the eye. It happens." She kept her voice as neutral as possible, hoping he would take the hint and leave her alone.

Unfortunately, he did not. "Yeah, I've gotten some pretty good ones from sparring too. Actually, I once-"

Before he could continue, she blurted out "you don't need to make conversation with me just because we're sitting together, you know. I don't care if you don't talk to me."

He didn't seem to be offended by her statement at all, just shrugged. "That's very true. But I wasn't talking to you just to pass the time." He turned his datapad back on, and flipped to a picture. "I think we could use each other's help."

Staring back at her was her own face, with a reward and the official Imperial Academy insignia. 

Dread shot through her, and before she could frantically think of something, _anything_ , to do to escape the situation, he said "Don't worry, I'm not going to call the Imps on you."

Dread still had a firm hand on her, but the initial panic started to vanish as she started considering all the factors. Why would he tell her if he was going to turn her in? And he'd said something about needing her help.

He quietly said "Don't jump up or try to run, it'll draw attention to us."

Sabine thought that he had an awful lot of nerve to be telling her what to do just minutes after meeting her. "Why are you-" Her question died in her throat when he turned to another picture in his datapad and showed her a different wanted poster, this time with his face plastered on it. 

"Oh." 

"I'm pretty sure the train was stopped because the Imperials know that one or both of us are on it. We can avoid getting caught if we work together, okay?"

Sabine chewed on her lip and weighed her options. If she wanted to get off the train before she was caught, it would be much simpler to do it alone. She'd gotten out of worse scrapes before, without his help. But then again, on most of the worst trouble she'd ever been in, Ketsu had been there.

She looked up, into his eyes. He was looking at her earnestly, still holding out the datapad with his wanted poster on it. If he was going to turn her in or hurt her, he'd had plenty of opportunities. Her eyes fell down to the name written below his picture.

"Okay, Kanan Jarrus, how do you suggest getting off the train?"

"The Imperials would have boarded looking for us right when it stopped, so they're probably searching the first car for us, and then splitting up and moving through all of them. We need something that would draw all of them to one car at once, so we can escape the train without being noticed."

"What could be big enough to distract all of them from finding us?"

Kanan tugged at his ponytail. "I was hoping you would have an idea for that, honestly." Sabine resisted the urge to roll her eyes again. "Great planning."

Her mind started to drift, wondering what she could do to call the attention of every single Imp on the train. She had grenades in her bag, which would be used as a _very_ effective distraction. Although those were likely to do much more damage than was worth it. She quickly side-eyed Kanan before ditching that idea. Adults were very rarely understanding of explosives.

"I might be able to cause some kind of mechanical failure, if I can get to this car's control panel." she said out loud. 

"What kind of mechanical failure? It would have to be a pretty big one."

She hunched her shoulders over a bit, wondering if he would laugh at what she was about to suggest. "I could make the wheels fall off?"

Kanan stared at her incredulously for a second. "Can you actually do that?"

"You'd need to help me get to the control panel in this car first," she told him. "There's a control panel in every car, and if I can connect all of them I could put in the command order to release the magnetic grip on the wheels. And no one would get hurt" she added as an afterthought. 

Kanan was already standing up. "How long do you need to do that?"

"It's not a very advanced security system. Five minutes." He nodded, and started walking towards the train official. Sabine, feeling slightly alarmed, grabbed her bag and followed him. She had no clue what he was going to do to get her those five minutes. He put his hand on her back and gave her a light push towards the control panel. 

"Just start walking towards it. Act normal."

She was almost at the panel when she heard the sounds of a disturbance behind her, and several people gasped. Kanan's voice came over the crowd, much louder than he'd been speaking before, "I'm so sorry, sir! I really didn't see you there, it's very crowded in here-"

It took all her willpower to not look behind her to see what he was doing, but she made it to the panel and turned it on. Bypassing the security system was easy, just as she'd suspected. She quickly drew up the interactive blueprints of the whole train, and found section dedicated to the magnetic force holding the wheels on. A message popped up on the screen.

**WARNING. THE WHEELS ARE NOT MEANT TO BE REMOVED WHILE THE TRAIN IS OCCUPIED.**

It only took a few more strokes to bypass the failsafe. She could still hear a commotion going on behind her. Whatever Kanan had done had worked. No one seemed to have noticed her at all.

There was a loud, metallic screech from the train. All the voices suddenly faded as there was another, and then the whole car wobbled menacingly. Sabine whipped around and stood on her tiptoes to search the rapidly-panicking crowd of people to find Kanan, only to feel someone grab her shoulder and pull her to the side. 

"That was great, kid. Even less than five minutes." She twisted around to see Kanan grinning at her. His ponytail was messed up, and she frowned. "What did you do, exactly?"

"I'll tell you later. Let's get off this-" He was interrupted by another metallic groan and the train wobbled again, even harder. "You're sure none of the passengers will get hurt?" he said, turning around to locate the emergency exit. "I'm sure. The car will just shake around a lot. We're already on the ground, so it's barely a foot to fall if the wheels are gone."

"Good." He finally found the door, and gave it a hard yank, and it gave way almost instantly. "The security on this train is incredibly flimsy" he said conversationally, gesturing to the ground for her to jump. She complied, and heard his feet hit the ground behind her. In their panic, no one back in the car seemed to notice their abrupt departure. 

It was dark outside the train, and the dark outline of the forest was barely visible against the sky.

Kanan indicated the trees ahead of them. "We should head into the woods a little. Get as further away from the train." She nodded in agreement, and followed him into the woods. They walked in silence for a while, until Kanan looked at her and said "So. Imperial Academy of Mandalore, huh?"

She made a soft puff of irritation. That was already too much about her for him to know straight away. "I guess my wanted poster had it all, then?"

"Just that and your name, and how old you were when you were a student there. Which makes you fourteen now?"

"I'm thirteen. My birthday's not until later in the year." He didn't say anything in response, and she wondered how old she appeared to someone who didn't know her actual age. Did she look older or younger?

"That's pretty young, to be all out on your own," he said cautiously. "On the subject of parents . . . do you-" She immediately shook her head before he could finish. "Alright, you don't have to talk about that. But do you want to tell me how you actually got that mark on your face?"

Sabine frowned slightly. "You could tell I was lying?"

"Just a hunch."

She shrugged. "Someone in that town the train was leaving from recognized me, and things got dicey. But I got away." He nodded. "Good for you. Now, this is my last question, I promise. Are you actually Mandalorian?"

She'd been expecting that one. "It would be weird if I was at the Academy there and I wasn't, wouldn't it?"

"You never know. So you are?"

"Yes." She kicked up a bit of dirt as she answered, feeling on edge.

"Is there a set of armor in that bag of yours?"

"You said you'd stop asking questions now."

"Good point." She wanted to ask what _he_ had done to get himself on the Empire's bad side, but that was probably private. She stopped suddenly. "Hey, where are we going?"

"At first I was just trying to put more distance between us and the train. But there's someone I think you should meet."

She still didn't move. "Assuming I want to go anywhere with you."

Kanan had stopped too now. "You don't have to stay if you don't want to. I just want you to talk to her."

"Talk to who? And where?"

"The captain of my crew. And I'm about to call her and tell her where we are, so she can pick us up."

Sabine rocked back and forth on her feet, considering. If things took a turn for the worse, it shouldn't be too difficult to escape. She still had the grenades in her bag, if she needed them. Kanan had seemed nice, but people were almost never as simple as they appeared.

She stared off into the darkness of the forest. If she wanted, she could just take off in the opposite direction, and never see him again.

"Okay. I'll talk to your captain."

Kanan gave her a genuine smile. "Thank you, Sabine."

**Author's Note:**

> I've made references to how the Ghost Crew picked up Sabine before in some of my fics, but most of those were throwaway lines/vaguely based on other people's headcanons, so I thought I'd try writing my own for a change.
> 
> Will probably be Jossed by any new episodes in season four, but I hope you enjoyed anyway. Tell me what you thought! I've never written Sabine and Kanan’s dynamic before, so feedback would be really helpful.


End file.
